OSNews

Most of us know what virtual machines are but for those don't know, virtual machines are the kind of software that allow users to run other operating system within current operating system. It's the favorite for everyone to taste other operating systems without going away from main operating system. In this article I'll show you how to installPicture VM VirtualBox 5.0 in Ubuntu 15.04/14.10/Linux mint Rafaela or other derivatives. Read more

It's been over 22 years since the last official version came out of Apple Computer. Some dedicated enthusiasts have made bug fixes and added additional features to create a new version of the operating system. More information and a link to the software can be found here.

Apple wants to make OS X El Capitan and iOS 9 less susceptible to attackers, so it's introducing a new two-factor authentication system to both operating systems. The new authentication system will be available in the public betas for both operating systems.

A fun-loving guy named Nick Lee got an Apple Watch running watchOS 2 to run MacOS System 7.5.5, using the Mini vMac Macintosh emulator. Not to be outdone, someone else got Windows 7 to run on an Asus Zenphone.

The Microsoft corporation has become OpenBSD's first "Gold Level" sponsor after a large donation. (Facebook and Google are both silver contributors). The move is likely related to Microsoft's use of OpenSSH in future versions of Powershell. Meanwhile at the FreeBSD site companies LineRate, NetApp, Google, Hudson River Trading, and Netflix dominate the top sponsors. Noticeably absent was the Apple Computer Corporation who base their OSX and IOS systems off of the free software BSD systems. More info about OpenBSD's 2015 fundraising campaign here.

Microsoft is ceasing support for enterprise IT workhorse Windows Server 2003 on July 14th. Despite support reaching end of life, research from the Cloud Industry Forum (CIF) suggests that at the end of 2014 61 per cent of businesses were still reliant on Windows Server 2003. A further study by Bit9 predicts 2.7 million Win2k3 servers will remain deployed post end-of-life. To give the OS a fitting send-off, Databarracks and the University of Surreyâs Electronics and Amateur Radio Society launched a Windows Server 2003 CD-ROM into the stratosphere in a weather balloon. You can watch the video at YouTube.

The design for the Micro Bit, the sequel to the venerable BBC Micro, has been finalized, and will be given to every 11- and 12-year-old British child in October. BBC Learning head Sinead Rocks said: "The BBC Micro Bit is all about young people learning to express themselves digitally. As the Micro Bit is able to connect to everything from mobile phones to plant pots and Raspberry Pis, this could be for the internet-of-things what the BBC Micro was to the British gaming industry." The Micro Bit's web site confirms it will include an ARM Cortex M0 process, bluetooth, motion sensors and a built in compass.

As with many things Linux-related, the variety of desktop environments is both a strength and a weakness. For new users, the decision of which DE to use can be a hard one. To help, the folks at Linux and Ubuntu have compiled a list of their top five. In typical fashion, partisans for the DEs that were left out were quick to advocate for their favorites in the comments. (I post this mostly to give OSNews readers the opportunity to opine on how wrong they are).

In a move that shouldn't surprise OSNews readers that much, Microsoft is writing off most of what it acquired from Nokia less than two years ago and will be laying off 7,800 people in its hardware division. According to Ars: "The hardware division includes the lionâs share of former Nokia employees, who became part of Microsoft last year. Former Nokia CEO Stephen Elop is leaving--this much we knew from last month--and Reuters says that Microsoft is also going to record an "impairment charge" of $7.6 billion dollars from the Nokia acquisition and perform a complete restructuring of its phone business. It's a shame, considering that Windows Phone has actually shaped out to be a pretty good OS, and a mobile OS landscape with only two players is good for neither consumers nor OS enthusiasts.

And so, a day before I leave for Italy for my Summer vacation, we've got some... News about Jolla. The company just put out a press release, announcing a focus shift.
Jolla Ltd., the Finnish mobile company and developer of open mobile operating system Sailfish OS, today announced a change in its company structure and management as further action toward company's strategy to focus on Sailfish OS licensing and development.
As of today, the company Jolla Ltd. will concentrate on the development and licensing business of the independent and open mobile operating system Sailfish OS. A new company will be established to continue Jolla's device business, where the company sees a specific interest from privacy-aware consumers and corporations around the world.
The press release - of course - frames this as happy news, but years of experience in covering technology (or just years of not living under a rock, really) has taught me that moves like this are never borne out of desire, but out of necessity. Combined with several delays of Jolla's tablet and of Sailfish 2.0, it's hard not to conclude the company (companies?) is facing bleak times.
I haven't exactly kept my displeasure with the slow pace of progress regarding Sailfish development a secret, and I've had worries about the company's future for a long time now. The Jolla phone is now 19 months old, and it wasn't exactly flagship-quality to begin with when it was first released in December 2013. While there's been considerable updates to Sailfish 1.0, it, too, is now 19 months old. In addition, the promised support for paid applications never arrived.
One also has to wonder just how wise it was to focus on building a tablet. Tablets don't get replaced very often, and they are a far smaller market than smartphones. In addition, adding a whole new form factor to support is surely to negatively affect the smartphone experience. Had the company instead focused on releasing a new phone, we might have had it sooner - no new form factor to develop - and we'd have a replacement for the under-performing original Jolla phone. Hindsight, though, right?
Regarding the tablet:
Jolla is committed to deliver the Jolla Tablet to its Indiegogo crowdfunding contributors and is working hard to start first shipments as soon as possible. "The software (Sailfish OS) part of the work is in good shape but we have been slowed down by supply issues of certain hardware components. We expect to solve this issue very soon," Mr. Saarnio says.
I hope the company can stay afloat long enough to ensure we get our tablets (I ordered one within minutes of the announcement). Maybe things are not as bleak as I make them out to be here, but I'm not exactly getting the positive vibes.

On Sunday, while most of Twitter was watching the Women's World Cup - an amazing game from start to finish - one of the world's most notorious security firms was being hacked.
Specializing in surveillance technology, Hacking Team is now learning how it feels to have their internal matters exposed to the world, and privacy advocates are enjoying a bit of schadenfreude at their expense.
Hacking Team is an Italian company that sells intrusion and surveillance tools to governments and law enforcement agencies.
Feels poetic.

Big changes afoot for Firefox.
We intend to move Firefox away from XUL and XBL, but the discussion of how to do that is in the early stages. There are a ton of unanswered questions: what technologies/best practices for web development should we adopt in its place? How does this affect add-on developers? Is there space for a native-code main-window on desktop like we have on Android? How much time should we spend on this vs. other quality issues? What unanswered questions have we not asked yet?
This clearly isn't a small endeavour, but the rationale given seems sound to me.

Itâs a fascinating time to take stock of startup innovation in the Netherlands, a rare turning point where you can watch the hard work of the past give way to the immense promise of the future.
Behind London and Berlin, the Dutch startup scene is already considered to be one of the most prominent in Europe. (If it feels unfair to weigh an entire country against individual cities, consider that the Netherlands has 17 million people crammed into an area half the size of South Carolina.)
The world of startups is intricately linked to technology, software, and Silicon Valley, but at the same time, it's a world that's very far away from me. The working hours, the insecurity, the minute chances at success - I would never opt for such a life.
Which is why people like me don't found the next Apple or Google.

Microsoft is planning to finalize Windows 10 this week, ahead of its official launch later this month. Sources familiar with Microsoftâs plans tell The Verge that the company is currently working on final copies of Windows 10, with a release to manufacturing (RTM) build expected later this week. RTM candidate builds have already been spotted online. Once the RTM build is ready, Microsoft will send the final copy of Windows 10 to its PC partners ahead of a release to the public on July 29th.
The actual release will be staggered; not everyone will get the update on 29 July. Probably a wise thing - hopefully this will allow Microsoft to catch problematic hardware components and drivers before it's pushed to all users.

Update: there's a denial, which in turn is also being questioned. Conclusion: nope, not happening.
Russian manufacturer Yota, well known for its Yotaphone dual screen phones, has announced that its next devices will no longer operate using Android but Sailfish, an alternative developed by former Nokia engineers at Jolla.
Interesting, if not a bit of an odd decision. One has to wonder what prompted this decision, because even though I like Sailfish for what it represents, it's far from a true alternative to Android or iOS. Maybe Yota knows something about Sailfish 2.0 we don't?
I'm intrigued.

More in Tux Machines

The Ubuntu MATE project does something very admirable each month. Its makers contribute financially to other open source projects that are being used in the operating system, and that is something that doesn't happen all the often in the FOSS universe.

Wine 1.7 Series Turn Two Years Old, No Sign Of Wine 1.8

Today marks two years since the start of the Wine 1.7 development series. While it's been two years of doing bi-weekly development releases, there's no sign of Wine 1.8.0 being ready for release in the near future.

Leftovers: Software

All the *mm projects now require C++11. Current versions of g++ require you to use the –std=c++11 option for this, but the next version will probably use C++11 by default. We might have done this sooner if it had been clearer that g++ (and libstdc++) really really supported C++11 fully.

I have just released version 1.13 of Obnam, my backup program. See the website at http://obnam.org for details on what it does. The new version is available from git (see http://git.liw.fi) and as Debian packages from http://code.liw.fi/debian, and uploaded to Debian, and soon in unstable.

MusicTube is a very interesting music player designed for multiple platforms using YouTube as the music source. It's not made for locally hosted music, and you can't add other online sources, but YouTube is a huge resource.